DIVAfest 2012

DIVAFEST 2012

GIRL IN, BUT NOT OF, THE ‘HOOD

Best of the 2011 San Francisco Fringe Festival!
Created and performed by Genevieve Jessee
Directed by Michelle Talgarow

You can’t go home again. Or, you shouldn’t. After finishing college, a young bi-racial woman reluctantly returns to her mother’s home in a gritty Oakland, CA neighborhood. She’d almost forgotten about the bullying ‘hood rats, the astrological chart readings of her hippy mother, and the drunken storytelling of her feisty southern Big Mama. Now that she’s back, she wants out, and for good. But, getting out will prove a lot harder than moving in.

PUSSY
Created and performed by Maura Halloran
Directed by Claire Rice

The tangled heartaches and adventures of a lesbian couple whose love is on the rocks, their homophobic bi-curious landlady and the homicidal cat who’s determined one of them’s gotta go. A tribute to the tribulations of trying to find your own groove when you don’t like the music. It’s a tale of love, hate, love-sex, hate-sex, online dating, marriage, beauty, unicorns, vampires, how softball can save your life and three outsiders whose fates triangulate around one spectacular cat.

ALMA COLORADA

Best of the 2011 San Francisco Fringe Festival!
Created and performed by Catherine Debon
Directed by Erica Blue

Based on the true story of a Spanish/Basque family of WWII resistance fighters, this physical theater piece builds evocative images with shadow, song, dance and spoken word. Alma Colorada cycles between scared and the sacred, exploring into the resilience of the human spirit.

PAS DE QUATRE WORKSHOP PERFORMANCE
Margery Fairchild’s newest work The Pas de Quatre is a Dramatic Comedy that explores the “behind the scenes” making of the celebrated (and still performed) ballet Le Pas de Quatre. A ballet that not only united the four reigning ballet stars of mid 19th Century Europe, but also defined the aesthetic of the Romantic Era in Dance, Music and Theatre. Join us for a talkback hosted by dramaturg Rebecca Novick after each presentation.

BEHIND THE SCENES: DIVAS IN THEIR NATURAL HABITATS
Mixed media doll sculptures by Kathy Jo Lafreniere, celebrating the women who work behind the scenes and backstage to make dreams, fantasies, and nightmares come true.

WORKSHOPS:

Feminine Medicine: Collecting the P.E.A.C.E.S.
Dedicated to promoting community healing, personal empowerment and global awareness, we invite females working in the arts, culture, media, education and sustainability to dialogue about solutions.

Organic Sex Talks hosted by Erica Blue
Short talks by women on sexuality. The discussion will then be added to the Golden Lotus Spa mural.

Golden Lotus Spa
Erica Blue’s 60 foot mural of Asian girls through the false paradise of their childhood and their odyssey to the Tenderloin massage parlors. Festival goers can use water colors, pens, colored pencils, and crayons to fill in the line drawings. Check at EXIT Theatre for Tenderloin locations.

Happily Lost in Time and PlaceReading, Signing & Reception with Erika Atkinson
Less than two years ago, Erika Atkinson stepped out onto the EXIT stage in front of a packed house, to tell for the first time a few hand-picked adventures from a half-century of traipsing about the planet. In celebration of the publication (by EXIT Press) of “Happily Lost In Time and Place,” her first montage of stories and prose, she returns with another handful of these sparkling anecdotes for your enjoyment and reflection. Once a Manitoba farm-girl, Erika traveled for many years to remote and less remote parts of the world, where all the stories in this collection were born. They are the result of coincidental but related events and happenstances — proof that profoundly magical moments are also deeply real and human. She resides happily in San Francisco’s Castro District.

Closing Celebration: The Feminine Mystique
CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH serving DIVA Delights & Libations . . . A Fundraiser insuring our voices continue to be heard . . . And a Discussion not to be missed on the Female Mystique in all it’s forms and functions.